Sunday, March 25, 2012

Quick plug (god, I love those). All the traffic photos are courtesy of my friend Jill, who rocks a great Kinshasa blog. If you want to read about life here without an undue focus on leather pants and death metal, check it out by clicking here.

I usually pass three of these on my way to buy beer.

Since moving to Kinshasa I have received a far share of questions from my sexy fans all over the world. Most of them involve pleading, desperate requests for autographs, snippets of hair, or wife beater tear away schematics.

A few, however, are more interesting. They ask about life here: what is my house like, how is teaching over here, what kind of food do they have, can you get those kick ass goldfish shoes? That sort of thing. One that I get alot, though, has to do with driving. Namely, what is it like to drive there? After 8 months on the dirt roads and shattered pavement that is the Kinshasa transit system, I feel I have become qualified to answer.

Driving here is like making out with Sally Struthers while hiding a chicken wing in your coat pocket. It's fun when you start out, but you know at some point you're probably gonna get mangled.

And then asked to buy something.

Not a day goes by on the highways and byways (and oh my god noways) of the DRC capital that I don't pass a wrecked car (which may or may not be on fire), a policeman either directing traffic or taking punches at it, or little kids running up and trying to hang off of my rear view mirrors. I thought "hop ons" were just a gag from Arrested Development until arriving here.

And that's not even rush hour.

It isn't all bad, though. On of my favorite moments out here is when I am on the main road and a truck, inpatient with the speed in his own lane, decides going against traffic makes complete sense. End result? the intrepid driver will begin flashing his lights and his horn angrily while driving TOWARDS ME through oncoming traffic (having left his lane five lanes ago) all the while cursing like I had somehow, someway, made the horrible mistake of getting in his way. It's like coming face to face with the wrath of God, if God was a jackass in a beat up tractor trailer. Blows away Gene Hackman, that's for sure.

That son of a bitch.

I can't see the driver's face, but I will bet it's filled with sweet, sweet rage.

It all works
out, though, as roads, lanes, and common sense are figments, phantoms
which have most likely been crushed under the wheels quite some time
ago. One good thing is that no matter where you are and how crazily you are parked, there is always someone around who isn't on fire who will help guide you out of your spot. It's like a cultural imperative. I have been waved out of spots by complete strangers more times than I can count. On the whole, the experience is meditative in a fake zen hippy way: you learn to accept everything. I get into a zone driving here
that I haven't experienced anywhere else. It's like I transcend myself and become pure experience. My thoughts are reduced to a single point of action/reaction:

Quick! Dodge the five pregnant woman running out into the road with no lights!

Oh no! That dude is selling tupperware and underwire bras!

Back up! The pack of children is hanging on to the hood again!

Make sure to turn left at the flaming barricade!

I think you get the idea. In a way, it's taken me full circle. As a kid the concept of driving was fun: turbo boosts, red shells, drifting, jumping across huge canyons with my rocket car . . . good times. A ticket to limitless freedom and the sort of girls who would wear red leather thigh high boots. Than real life set in and I had to worry about insurance, "right of way" conventions, following distances, speed limits, and gas milage.

But here, in Kinshasa, I can drive like I always wanted, like video games promised my generation it would be.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

This month, All The World’s a RAGE celebrates its one year anniversary.Like most birthdays for one year old peeps,
this will hopefully involve lots of laughter, tears, bodily fluids, and
quizzical looks directed at the folks who try to grab my toes while making
strange beeping sounds.It is a time for
looking back, gazing forward, and drooling copiously on loved ones and chew
toys with bells in them.

One year ago I was sitting in Taiwan wondering what the hell
was going to happen to me next.Now,
here I am, 12 months later, sitting in Kinshasa wondering what the hell will
happen to me next.Given my living
situation it’ll probably involve mosquito bites, mango attacks, or some
combination thereof.

Regardless of imminent fruit wounds, this upcoming year
looks like a big one for me.

To start with, I have a rather busy schedule the next six
months, dear reader- going to Paris in a month with my lady friend (Big
Labowski so good), then off to Mallorca for a month, then Germany for Wacken
heavy metal rage, and then back to the DRC.

On the job front, next year could turn out very interesting
for me (and not in the usual, “holy crap your pant leg is on fire” style).This summer I will finally finish up my admin
courses (after three arduous summers of topless beaches and mountains of
beers), which means I will soon be ready to open my school of hard knocks (or
thuganomics, depending on the student population).So, in addition to all that, I need to
figure out where my hat (or skull helmet) shall hang in the coming
years.Do we stay in DRC or do we move
on?What place has sufficient thunder or
greasiness to attract me?What school
would accept life under my iron fist?Which town has better street meat?All this questions and more to ponder (feel free to send me sales
pitches- hopefully in brochure form, because I love me some brochures).

I also have two big projects in the works- my rewritten, retitled, and fully illustrated masterpiece will be released late 2012/early 2013, followed
by my next opus later on in the coming year (cheapest of cheap plugs- click here to get info, hee hee).

So a full year of adventure, decisions and, hopefully,
leather pant purchases.Hopefully the
blog will grow, too.Maybe I can crack
the double digits in readership (Latvia, I’m looking at you and your delicious
pastries).If not, though, thanks for
reading.For those who climbed into the
RAGE cage (that’s a t shirt right there) a bit late, here are some links to my
favorite posts over the past year. Some
even have comments- sweet:

To find out what it’s like recording Death Metal music in
Myanmar (number two most oppressive country in the world behind North Korea and
parts of Texas), click here!

If you’ve ever wondered why Gene Hackman is a ruthless son
of a bitch, click here!